ON June 17, 2017, the Ministry of Education (MoE) announced that they would be exploring the possibility of limiting the number of subjects students can write at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations.

Currently, anyone hoping to write CSEC is not limited in how many subjects they can pursue, but if the MoE is to go ahead with it’s plan, students of List A, B or Sixth Form Secondary school must not exceed 10 subjects. Meanwhile, students of List C, D or E Secondary School must not exceed six. Mathematics and English must be included in both of these cases.
I found this section of the circular particularly interesting. Because, what this does is not only acknowledge how bad education is in certain schools, but also comments upon the privilege of the schools listed in the A/B categories. A/B categories would be schools such as Queen’s and Bishop’s, while C/D/E categories would be schools such as Dolphin Secondary.

There is the general consensus that children in A/B categories are smarter and more likely to achieve more academically than those from other categories. After all, these students would have received the required high marks at their Common Entrance Examinations that would have sent them to these schools. Whereas, those with lower grades were sent to lower schools. As a country hoping to improve our education sector, we must make more effort to deconstruct the privilege that is implicit in the first category schools. One can even go so far to say that one of the reasons so many children from the lower category schools perform so badly is because they are taken care of last. They get the least experienced teachers in several cases, they often have poorer infrastructure, less subjects being offered and far less activities that can create rounded children, while the situation in the A/B categories is the exact opposite.

A prerequisite was also included in the circular that was sent out. It stated that “The number of subjects a student can offer at the Caribbean Secondary Education certificate examinations will depend on his/ her performance at the National Grade 9 Assessment and/or the Annual Examinations administered at the end of Grade 10.”

The ministry’s main concern if they are serious about the education of our nation’s children should not be limiting the subjects students are allowed to take, particularly if these numbers differ from school to school. The ministry should seek to ensure that these students are receiving the knowledge and life skills that often go un-gained in their institutions, particularly those considered lower categories of schools. How did we even end up with such privilege in state-run institutions? When free education was implemented during the Burnham era, the reasoning behind it was not to ensure that certain sections of society or students received better or worse education. It was so that everyone had equal opportunities and were not held back because they could not afford it, or belonged to a specific religion as was popular during the days when most schools were run by churches.

Personally, I do not see the sense in writing more than 10 subjects. I wrote nine and if I were to go back, I would write less. Mainly, that is just because of how lazy I am as a person though. Several folk I know wrote 15 plus subjects because they felt they could do it and they did. I also know that one of the main reasons why these students do 20 plus subjects is not merely because they want to prove some point, but rather because, coming from a third world country with limited opportunities for advancement, they know that their scholarship opportunities are limited.

Scholarships are the main reasons so many students decide to write so many subjects. So unless the government would be actively giving out scholarships to those who did well in their 10 or six CSEC exams, I think they should give this a bit more thought. What this should come down to is not a mandate set out by the ministry, but rather a collective approach with inputs from the student themselves, the teachers and the parents, because these are the people who know the progress and development of the child more than some ministry official doing random surveys.